End of the Century (69 page)

With the White's assistance, Alice altered the programming and functioning of the disk.

Somewhere, in the spiraling tower of the Change Engine, a raven had once flown. A raven that, when with at least six of its brothers, had been able to speak. Now, Alice understood why, and how.

From the records of the Dialectic, the White was able to supply the genetic profile of the black-winged bird. Alice keyed the disk to download the stored consciousness of the dead knight stored within, not into another human body, but into the minds of a flock of birds. The stored mind would be distributed, if imprecisely, across an entire subspecies of ravens, passed down genetically through their descendants. Any single raven would only hold a small portion of the fragmented mind, but enough of them together would constitute something like a human personality. It wouldn't be able to reason and communicate like a human would, but with proper motivation and singlemindedness, it would suit her purposes.

Alice whispered to the mind stored on the disk, imparting to it a mission. Find her younger self in the future and protect her from the Huntsman and his dogs.

Then, as the molecular machines were completing their modifications to the last surviving knight, a sudden thought hit Alice. Now she understood what the raven had been trying to say. The raven had been communicating a message, all right, but it wasn't directed at her.

Alice coded the new message into the dead knight's mind, and then instructed the White to upload a copy of her own memory and mind into the disk. It was her own little lifeboat, of sorts. She only hoped that Stillman could work out what the message meant.

Then she turned her attention back to the last knight.

The molecular machines of the Change Engine had altered his biology, from the toughened skin through the strengthened muscles down to the bones laced with unbreakable polymers. The machines built other machines, which coursed through his bloodstream, and nestled in his marrow, and moved up and down his spinal column, self-regulating repair mechanisms that would be able to heal any injury and stave off the effects of aging for long periods of time. The knight would age, but extremely slowly.

Galaad

When it was over, Galaad felt restored, refreshed. He stood up, his muscles moving with a strength and ease he'd not experienced before.

“You have been altered, changed to serve our purpose,” the Sea Witch explained. “You will age, but so slowly you will scarcely notice, and you will heal instantly from all but the severest wounds, and even from those you will recover in time.”

Galaad flexed his fingers, overwhelmed by the sense of vitality that flooded through him.

“Now, retrieve your fallen companion's sword and the sheath worn at his side.”

Galaad did as he was told. Again the Sea Witch moved her hands before her, describing strange sigils in midair. The room brightened with the same white glow, which again faded just as quickly.

“Now the sword has been altered as well, bound to you as it was once bound to him. Now you will be able to draw from the sheath that which no one else can.”

Galaad slid the whisper-thin blade into the scabbard and watched the hilt join with the sheath. Then, effortlessly, he pulled the sword free again, the blue glow casting strange shadows over him.

Alice

Alice told the knight about the Huntsman, about how his fallen friend had been remade by the Red King and sent out into the world. Then she told him to take the disk to London, and bury it under the hill at the east edge of the city, the place called White Mount. Then, it would fall to him to wait the long centuries until the time came to act. He should protect the tower, and prevent the Red King from entering if at all possible, and ensure that Alice entered if not. The years would be long, but if it was within her power to reward him, she would.

Alice didn't know the details, but told the knight what she knew, how a man named Mervyn had taken the boundary from a man named Bonaventure, sometime in the late nineteenth century. Alice wasn't sure that the knight understood everything she was telling him, but she hoped for the best.

Galaad

Galaad strode from the Unworld, returning through the Summer Lands to the world he knew with the shield on his arm and Artor's sword Hardspace in his hand. He had a long journey before him.

Alice

When the knight had gone, Alice realized that, keyed to the knight's genetics, the sword could be drawn by his offspring as well, if he ever had any. The changes the molecular machines had made to his biology had not affected his ability to reproduce. So a second or third generation would be able to wield the sword, as well, though likely not much farther.

Now she knew who “J.D.” had been, and why she had been able to draw the blue-white sword in the Glasshouse, but it was too late to do anything about that now.

It was time for Alice to put the final stage of her plan into action.

“Tweedledee? Tweedledum?” Alice called out into the whiteness, summoning the Dialectic.

The White Rabbit appeared before her, floating in midair, its nose twitching furiously.

“What is the reasoning behind this?”

Alice didn't answer, but waited as the image of the Red Queen appeared, also drawn from her memories.

The Red had never appeared to her before. But then, it had never occurred to her to call for it before, either.

“The Dialectic waits.”
The voice of the Red buzzed like angry bees in her head.

“I suppose you're wondering why I called you here today,” the ancient Alice said, her wrinkled face smiling. Falling, still falling, always falling.

“Present the circumstance,”
the Red Queen buzzed
“and the protocols will be applied.”
The voice was haughty, self-important, puffed up. She was reminded of the voice of Mervyn which she “remembered” from before.

“I think I've worked out how Mervyn did such a number on you, without even really meaning to. He recited anecdotes and paradoxes from a man named Lewis Carroll, which conflicted with your conception of rationality and messed with your programming. Right?”

“Essentially
,” the White Rabbit said.

“The Dialectic waits,”
the Red Queen buzzed, impatiently.

“See, the thing is, I don't think you realize that none of that
actually happened.”

The White Rabbit and Red Queen regarded her, silent, for a moment.

“If you mean that they were in some way counterfactual,”
the Red Queen began,
“then it can hardly be relevant what you…
”

“No,” Alice interrupted, shaking the buzzing voice from her head. “I mean that they were all just
made up.
They
were fiction.
Thought problems.
Stories.”

The two avatars of Red and White floated silently before her.

“The place I come from, the world you snatched me from? It
was full
of stories. Books. Myths. Legends. It's how some of us saw the world. It's how some of us made sense of crazy shit that happened. Some escaped from reality into stories, while others saw the world through a lens of story. Either way, it was everywhere, all around us.”

The avatars remained immobile, silent.

“I don't know why your designers left a big hole in your programming, but they did. I think you”—she pointed at the Red Queen—“got your head all turned around trying to figure out how the story about the two uncles and three barbers could actually have happened, or how someone has to run all day just to stay in the same place, or whatever. Without realizing that it didn't matter, because it
couldn't
happen. It's all word play. It never existed.”

The avatars seemed to waver for a moment, as though distorted by heat rising from a hot Texas highway.

“If the protocols have been modified by errant data,”
the White Rabbit said,
“then the decisions reached may be in error.
”

“Agreed,”
the Red Queen buzzed.

“Proposed: that defaults should be restored, and the circumstance examined anew.
”

There was a lengthy pause. Somewhere, Alice thought she heard a man screaming in anger.

“Agreed,”
the Red Queen buzzed.

Then the two avatars winked out of existence.

Alice was left alone, falling.